Much Ado About Nothing:
A Verse Translation
ISBN: 0-9752743-1-7
ISBN-13: 978-0-9752743-1-6
160 pages
Buy the Paperback
from these online sellers
Amazon Kindle eBook
Purchase the Amazon Kindle eBook
and read it on your computer, iPhone, iPod touch, Android, or Kindle
Much Ado about Nothing: Kindle Edition
To read your purchase, download free Kindle app.
Barnes & Noble Nook eBook
Purchase the Nook eBook and read it on your computer, iPhone, iPod touch, Blackberry, Android, or Nook
Much Ado About Nothing: Nook edition
To read your purchase, download free Nook app.
Much Ado About Nothing Excerpt
This excerpt from Act Four shows how carefully the ENJOY SHAKESPEARE translations recreate all of Shakespeare's effects. We think of Shakespeare's plays as primarily blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter), but Much Ado About Nothing is only about 40% verse.
Notice how this scene begins in prose, but shifts to verse as the tension increases, exactly as in Shakespeare's original. Highlighting has been added in this excerpt (not the published version) to illustrate this shift to verse.
Scene One. Inside a Church
[Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, LEONATO, FRIAR FRANCIS, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, HERO, BEATRICE, and others]
LEONATO
Come, Friar Francis, be brief. Give us the simplest ceremony, and you can explain their individual obligations afterwards.
FRIAR FRANCIS
Are you here, my lord, to marry this lady?
CLAUDIO
No.
LEONATO
[to CLAUDIO] He means to get married. [to FRIAR FRANCIS] Friar, you’re the one who marries them.
FRIAR FRANCIS
Lady, have you come here to “get married” to this count?
HERO
I have.
FRIAR FRANCIS
If either of you know of any undisclosed impediment to this union, I command you, at your soul’s peril, to state it now.
CLAUDIO
Do you know of any, Hero?
HERO
None, my lord.
FRIAR FRANCIS
Do you know of any, count?
LEONATO
If I may dare to answer for him, none.
CLAUDIO
O, what men will dare to do! What men will do! What men will do each day, not knowing what they do!
BENEDICK
What’s this! If the script needs interjections, why not cheerful ones—like “Ha, ha, hee!”
CLAUDIO
Excuse me, Friar.—[to LEONATO] Father, if I may,
Will you— with concience clear and unconstrained—
Give me this maid, your daughter?
LEONATO
As freely, son, as God gave her to me.
CLAUDIO
And what have I to give you back, whose worth
Could balance out this rich and precious gift?
DON PEDRO
Nothing, unless you give her in return.
CLAUDIO
Dear prince, you teach me splendid gratitude.
There, Leonato, take her back again.
Don’t give this rotten orange to your friend.
Her honor is no more than show or semblance.
Behold, how like a maid she blushes here.
A front of such integrity and trust
Hides well the cunning sinfulness within.
Does not this color [indicating HERO’s cheeks], modesty’s star witness,
Attest to genuine virtue? Will you not swear,
All you who see her, that she must be pure,
Based on these outward signs? But she is not.
She knows the heat of a lascivious bed.
Her blush is out of guilt, not modesty.
LEONATO
What could you mean, my lord?
CLAUDIO
I mean not marry,
Not bind my soul to one proved to be wanton.
LEONATO
My dearest lord, if you, to seek such proof,
Have vanquished the resistance of her youth,
And brought to ruin her virginity....
CLAUDIO
I know what you will say: if I’ve been with her,
You’ll say that she embraced me as a husband,
And thus reduce her sin to mere impatience.
No, Leonato,
I never tempted her with talk too free,
But, as a brother to his sister, showed
Timid intentions and a proper love.
HERO
Have I at all seemed otherwise to you?
CLAUDIO
Shame on this pretense! I hereby denounce it.
You seem to be the goddess of the moon,
More chaste than any bud before it blooms.
But you are more ungoverned in your lusts
Than Venus, or a horse—some pampered stud
Raging in savage sensuality.
HERO
You’re so wide of the mark, could you be ill?
LEONATO
Dear prince, why don’t you speak?
DON PEDRO
What should I say?
I’d be dishonored if an effort’s made
To link my dear friend to a common tart.
LEONATO
Were these things said, or is this but a dream?
DON JOHN
Sir, they were said, and yes these things are true.
BENEDICK
It’s not much like a wedding.
HERO
True? O God!
CLAUDIO
Leonato, do I stand here?
Is this the Prince? Is this the Prince’s brother?
Is this face Hero’s? Are our eyes our own?
LEONATO
All this is true, but what of it, my lord?
CLAUDIO
Just let me pose one question to your daughter,
And, with the natural power vested in
A father, make her answer truthfully.
LEONATO
I order you to do so, as my child.
HERO
O, God defend me! Look how I’m besieged!—
Why must I go through such a catechism?
CLAUDIO
To give an answer worthy of your name.
HERO
Is it not Hero? Who can blot that name
With any true complaint?
CLAUDIO
Why, Hero can.
The word itself can blot out Hero’s virtue.
What man was talking with you just last night
Outside your window, between twelve and one?
If you’re a virgin, then explain all this.
HERO
I talked with no man at that hour, my lord.
DON PEDRO
Why, then you are no virgin.—Leonato,
I’m sorry you must hear this. On my honour,
Myself, my brother, this offended count,
All saw her, heard her, at that hour last night,
Talk with a ruffian at her chamber window,
Who did, indeed, in frank, licentious words,
Confess the vile encounters they have had
A thousand times in secret.
DON JOHN
Shame, shame! They are not to be said, my lord,
Not to be spoken.
There is no language delicate enough
To utter them without offense. Thus, pretty lady,
I’m disappointed by your great misconduct.
CLAUDIO
O Hero! What a hero you’d have been
If even half of all your outward charms
Were used to grace your thoughts and guide your heart!
But, farewell, foulest, fairest one! Farewell,
You pure impiety, impious purity!
For you I’ll lock up all the gates of love,
And on my eyelids let suspicion hang,
To think of beauty now in terms of harm,
And never let its graces work on me.
LEONATO
Can no man’s dagger lend it’s point to me?
[HERO faints]
BEATRICE
What’s this, my cousin? Why do you sink down?
DON JOHN
Let’s go. These things, now that they’ve come to life,
Have smothered her vitality.
[Exit DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, and CLAUDIO]
BENEDICK
How is the lady?
BEATRICE
Dead, I think.—Help, uncle!
[scene continues...]
Now available for you Kindle or iPhone
